An unhealthy system

The demand raised by the Nagaland Medical Students Association (NMSA) for the revocation of services of 97 medical graduates appointed on an ad hoc contractual basis during the COVID-19 pandemic has reopened a crucial debate on public recruitment, constitutional propriety, and the long-term consequences of emergency-driven decisions. According to the NMSA, these appointments were made outside the mandated frameworks of the Nagaland Public Service Commission (NPSC) and the Nagaland Staff Selection Board (NSSB), thereby undermining the principles of meritocracy, transparency, and equal opportunity enshrined in the Constitution.The NMSA’s stand has found strong backing from the Naga Students’ Federation (NSF), which has gone a step further by demanding the revocation of all notifications related to the regularisation of COVID-time medical appointments. The NSF has also called for all 280 sanctioned posts to be requisitioned to the NPSC and NSSB for open, competitive recruitment, ensuring fairness and adherence to established rules. At the outset, the NMSA has made it clear that its position is not an attempt to belittle the immense contribution of healthcare workers during the pandemic. Medical professionals served under extraordinarily challenging circumstances, risking their own safety in the larger public interest. Their commitment and sacrifice during one of the most severe public health crises in recent history are acknowledged, valued, and deeply respected. However, NMSA has stressed that appreciation for service cannot be allowed to override the rule of law. It also pointed out that the engagement of COVID Medical Officers was explicitly temporary and contractual, limited to a fixed tenure of 12 months. The terms of appointment clearly stipulated that no claim for regularisation or absorption into regular service would arise from such engagement. Any departure from this understanding, the association argues, would amount to a breach of the agreed conditions and set a dangerous precedent for public employment. NMSA reiterated, that appointments to regular, sanctioned posts must be made only through due process, either via a special recruitment drive or standard procedures conducted by the NPSC or NSSB, in strict compliance with applicable recruitment rules. While referring to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare advisory dated May 3, 2021, the association acknowledged that the Centre had recommended granting preference to healthcare professionals who completed a minimum of 100 days of COVID-related duty. Crucially, however, this preference was to be exercised within the framework of open recruitment through public service commissions or other designated bodies. The state government’s move to directly regularise 97 contractual medical officers by bypassing NPSC procedures, and by confining the benefit to a select group, has therefore been termed discriminatory and only superficially aligned with the Centre’s advisory. More troubling is the exclusion of several other healthcare workers who had also completed more than 100 days of COVID-related duty, rendering the exercise a selective “special regularisation drive” that violates the principles of equality, fairness, and merit-based public employment. This controversy within the Department of Health and Family Welfare is symptomatic of a broader administrative malaise often described as the “khushi-khushi syndrome,” where rules are bent or selectively applied across departments. Similar concerns have surfaced in other instances, including the contentious induction process to the IAS cadre, which saw prolonged agitation by the Joint Coordination Committee of state services associations before the cabinet was compelled to recall name(s) forwarded to the UPSC. Such repeated deviations risk turning exceptions into conventions. When rules are tweaked too often, they lose their authority, and governance itself becomes vulnerable to arbitrariness. The present issue, therefore, is not merely about 97 appointments, but about safeguarding institutional integrity and reaffirming that even in times of crisis, the rule of law must remain non-negotiable.